“In the next place, from the very time you come to do business for yourself, always bear in mind the disadvantage of being in debt. That so long as you are in debt you are laboring to a fourfold disadvantage and living on the mercies of your creditors.

Be not in haste to contract marriage for perhaps it may not prove so great a blessing as you may think, for, if so, the longer time in procrastination the less time you will have to live in trouble. For you must remember it is for life. This advice you must communicate to your sisters and brothers, of whom you are the older, and attend to their welfare as far as circumstances will admit of. This advice with that you you can get from good authors and that of your aged friends, who will be willing to advise you for your good, may suffice to take you through this world by making use of good economy yourself.

Therefore, I must leave you, hoping that the God of Heaven may smile upon you and the balance of the family, is the sincere wish of a father and friend to his children.

William Gard”

Upon William’s death in 1827, Jesse, who was away working in another town, returned home to take care of the family, just as his father wished. He would have been proud.

Now, I will leave you a photograph. This is Nora Gard Cummings, 1871-1941, youngest daughter of William Perry Gard and Phebe Stewart. There is no date on this photograph, but she looks to be late teens. She seems a very composed young woman.

“In the next place be very cautious not to keep company with those of bad character for you will be branded with the same, marked by those who stand and look on, that is of a better character. Avoid making use of bad language for it is an evil habit and mark of bad breeding and disgusting to good company.

In the next place, for the good of your health and the good of society and a comfortable living, make use of common industry, so that you may live without being dependent of strangers with whom you will be left, and let your life be marked with strict honesty and benevolence should you be blessed with this world’s goods, in plenty never withhold your hand from helping the needy for you know not how long prosperity will last with you, and if adversity crowds upon you, bear it with fortitude, like a man, always keeping the golden rule before you and by so doing you will find friends in a strange country, whether in prosperity or adversity.”

I’ll finish up this missive in my next post, but for now I will leave you with a little treasure I found. This is a photo of William Gard’s youngest son, William Perry Gard, and his wife, Phebe Stewart, my great-great-grandparents. William Perry was only a year old when his father, William, passed away, so he never had the benefit of knowing this truly wise man. This was taken in July 1861, in Indianapolis, IN, right at the beginning of the Civil War.

I can’t say enough about the Clara Barton chapter of the DAR in Huntington Beach, CA. I just couldn’t have done it without the help of Jenice, 2nd Vice Regent, and Sharon, Registrar. They both put in hours of their own time to help me research and then to fill out the application and proper paperwork.

Thank you, ladies!

Our application was submitted the first week of May. I was told to expect to wait weeks, perhaps months, to hear back. Because of my mother’s age, 94, the process might be accelerated, so I was hopeful it would be.

The next week, I got an email from Jenice saying that the DAR genealogy department would be sending out letters to all three of us, probably requesting more information. Neither she nor Sharon knew what would be needed, but that I should call as soon as I got my letter and we’d get working. Truth be told, that was a bit discouraging.

The next day, I see an email from Jenice: Call me right away! So, I did.

Jenice: Are you sitting down?

Me: Yes…

Jenice: You’re VERIFIED!

Me: WHAT??? HOW??? WOW!!! Etc., etc., etc.!

Jenice’s thought was perhaps another genealogist reviewed the application and decided that all was indeed in order. We will never know, but according to the DAR website, we’re in!

There will be a vote June 5th, so I’m keeping my emotions in check, and not telling my mother, until I know without a doubt. But… squeal!

And, even though I (probably) won’t be needing the information I gathered after the application was submitted, I am very glad that I did a bit more digging.

For years, there was a publication called The Guardian Quarterly. Unfortunately, it’s out of print now, but the past issues are digitized at Family Search and are a goldmine of Gard family information. And, in its pages, I found this letter, written by William Gard to his eldest son, Jesse, half-brother to William Perry Gard. I believe William wrote it during his last, fatal illness. It was copied from the Record of Births, Marriages, and Deaths in the family Bible by Uncle James McHenry on April 9, 1849.

Jesse, my son,

After I am dead and gone, I want you to take good care of this record, for your own benefit and the benefit of the family; and, as you are the oldest, I must commit to to your care , so as you may all know your ages, and by looking this over, you will see that you once had a mother, although you had very little recollection of her, and when my name is entered on the death page just below where your mother’s death is recorded, there you will see the name of a father and friend, although I expect to be called from you while you are yet young and ill-prepared to be left without father or mother. I must therefor recommend you to the hands of your Creator with following advice:

Strive to gain as good an education as you can for your opportunity. all this advice has been given to you while I am alive, but much neglected. Therefore I hope that this, my last request, will not be neglected as it had for your own benefit; and no one else can enjoy the benefits of that study only as a public good that every one ought to enjoy and without it you will step into the world like a man from the clouds entirely naked.

There is more to this lovely letter, but I shall save it for another day. Until then, I will leave you with this photograph of William Perry’s wife, Phebe Stewart Gard.

We thought everything was ready. A stack of documents. Completed applications with notarized signatures. Money was involved.

However, the registrar of the DAR chapter we (myself, my mother and my daughter) are joining, noticed something we had overlooked.

There was no supporting evidence between William GARD and William Perry GARD to document the father-son relationship. Oops.

So, we are scurrying around trying to fill in the blank: Phone calls, research, the random acts of kindness that fill the genealogical world.

And, in all the searching, I’ve found some interesting facts to round out the story of William’s life.

He was born in 1788 in Fayette, PA, but as a young man he moved to Ohio. I’ve found that lots of Gards lived in Ohio, including relatives that I can’t sort out. They might have been uncles, cousins, or nephews. It’s a tangled web of Jeremiahs, Levis, Jacobs, and Ephraims. It’s a job for another day.

Once in Hamilton, Ohio, William married Sarah Woodruff in 1810. They had two children, Jesse in 1811 and Elizabeth in 1813.

In the mean time, William had volunteered for the Butler Co., Ohio volunteer militia for the War of 1812. Also in his unit were Ephraim and Levi Gard (relationships to be determined). And, sometime before April 1813, he was taken prisoner in Detroit.

(Which answered a mystery. In my research, I’ve run across countless family trees that have William dying in Detroit. I couldn’t figure out why that random fact kept popping up. But, my theory is that someone, somewhere mistakenly thought he had died either in battle or in prison when his unit fought in the Siege of Detroit. And, it keeps getting copied to new trees.)

Sometime around April 1813, William was released and then mustered out. Three days later, on April 27, his wife Sarah died, leaving a tiny new-born Elizabeth without a mother.

Sometime later that year, William married Sarah’s sister, Phebe, in Hamilton, Ohio. Both his parents, Jeremiah and Experience, died soon after, also in 1813. It was a difficult year for William, I’m thinking.

Years later, William was a prosperous farmer in Indiana, having received a land grant for his service in the war. He was also one of the first representatives to the state legislature. He and Phebe had three children, Julia, Sarah, and William Perry, born in 1826.

On his way home from a legislative session in late 1826 or early 1827, he was caught in a storm, became ill, and never got better. He died April 14, 1827, and he was buried on his farm in York. He left Phebe with five children, including my ancestor, William Perry, not quite a year old.

Above is a page for the probate of William’s estate. He had extensive possessions and property. The papers list his wife, Phebe, but there is no mention of his five children. I also have census records for 1830 and 1840, listing Phebe as the head of the household. But, until 1850, only the heads of households were named; all others were only counted in their appropriate age groupings. Below is the 1830 census.

It appears that Phebe never remarried. She passed away in Clinton Co., Indiana, in 1859.

I’m hoping that there is a guardian record on file in an Indiana courthouse to find the evidence I need. Until then, we are going to try to make our case with the information we have.